7 7S 

•L?^ 



THE FIRST REPUBLICAN YEAR 

A Review in Which the Republican Majority Leader in the 
Senate Contends the Present Congress Has AccomDlished 
More Effective Legislation Than Any Other Peac LiBRftRY OF CONGRESS 
National Legislature 

By HENRY CABOT LODGE 

United States Senator from Massachusett: 






HERE are two points of a gen- 
eral character to which I wish at 
the outset to bring attention. In 
the first place remember that 
the choice which lies before the 
voters next autumn is not be- 
tween the Republican party and 
some ideal organization which 
never makes a mistake but 
which passes laws, especially tax laws and 
tariffs, which please everybody, an organiza- 
tion which has never yet existed and never 
will exist. The choice before us is much 
simpler than that — very different — it is a 
choice between the Republican party and 
the Democratic party. Those two parties in 
a practical way are all you have to choose 
between. 

Therefoie, Avhen you are making your com- 
parison you are not making it with counsels 
of perfection as against the Republican par- 
ty, you are making it as against the Demo- 
cratic party and nothing else, and, there- 
fore, what the Den)ocratic organization has 
done and promises to do is that with which 
the comparison must be made in determin- 
ing how to vote. 

DENIES CRY OF DEMOCRATS 
Now the second point is this: The Demo- 
cratic organization in Congress, and no 
doubt elsewhere, has been filling the air 
with the cry that this is a "do nothing" 
Congress— that nothing has been done. That 
is easily said and its ease commends itself, 
of course, to the Democratic intelligence, 
on which it is not well to put too severe 
a strain. By every artifice of delay and 
time wasting they have done their best to 
make this Congress a "do nothing" body and 
althougli they have failed, they are keeping 
on saying it just the same. 

The proposition, however, that this has 
been a "do nothing" Congress is a state- 
ment I purpose to disprove. In the first 
place, consider what the situation was wliich 
the Republican party was obliged to take 
up when it came into full control of the 
goveinment less than a year ago. We had 
passed through a great war, a war won not 
by any party organization, Avhether Repub- 
lican or Democratic, but by the courage and 
quality of our .soldiers and the enormous 
patriotic energy of the American people. It 
was a time when everybody was profoundly 
moved— it was a time of excitement. 

The American people were determined to 
win the war— they were ready to make any 
sacrifice in money to secure success. Al- 
though they are the most generous people 
on earth and did not question in that war 
time any appropriations or expenditures, 
they had a right to expect that the money 



tliey fieely gave with both hands should not 
be spent needlessly or recklessly. 

Then the war ended and the excitement 
died down and in cold blood we began to 
look about us. The tragedy was over, the 
lights were out, the music was hushed, and 
the country was left to contemplate what 
had happened in the calm of returning 
peace. It is an old saying that they who 
call the tune must pay the piper, but in 
this case, so far as the government was con- 
cerned, the Democrats called the tune and, 
being rejected by the country, left it to the 
Republican party when it came in to pay the 
piper. 

THE GREAT WAR DEBT 

1 liad been in Washington, of course, 
tlu'ough all those months of the war. I 
tiiouglit I knew something of the expendl- 
ture.s. something of the extravagance, but 
until tlie burden fell upon us I had no con 
ception of the extent of tlie waste or of the 
amount of debt and wreckage with which 
wo were obliged to deal. The sum of $3,- 
500,000,000 had gone to the shipping board, 
and we had to take over that financial 
wreck. We are making an endeavor to save 
from that wreck enough to secure the fu- 
ture of our American merchant marine, the 
difficulty of which can hardly be overesti- 
mated. We had spent $365,000,000 on aircraft 
and we had not a single combat plane in 
France when the war closed. We had been 
using for our air service such planes as we 
could get from France and England. We 
had spent on artillery $582,000,000, and we 
fought the war with French guns. When 
tlie war clo.sed we had just begun to get 
machine guns of our own, on which many 
months had been wasted in experimenting 
and delays. 

We had bought supplies for the War de- 
partment with reckless profusion and had 
on our hands an immense surplus of every 
kind of material— copper, wool, food, cloth- 
ing and equipment of all kinds. If I had 
time to give you the details it would pre- 
sent a picture which you would find it diffi- 
cult even to believe. All these results of 
reckless buying had to be disposed of. I 
mention only these as illustrations of the 
problems which confronted us on the fourth 
of last ^larcli. 

Figures are usually dull, but I am going to 
give you a few figures, which I think you 
will find both striking and picturesque. We 
gained control of Congress bv the elections 
of 1918, and on the fourth of March, 1919, 
we had possession of both House and Sen- 
ate. With the war still going on, on the 
eve of victory as all men knew, the Ameri- 
can people had pone to the polls and 



changed a Democratic majority of 500,000 in 
the country to a Republican majority of 1,- 
200,000. Such a change of party under such 
conditions had never happened before and 
was really almost unimaginable, and yet the 
American people liad voted in such a way as 
to make a net gain throughout the country 
for the Republican party of 1,700,000. They 
were passionately tln-illed by the coming 
victory, but were still calm enough to get 
rid of the Democratic party as a necessary 
condition of peace and safety. The new 
Congress was hampered in its work, because 
it received no help from heads of depart- 
ments or from the administration, which 
was still in Democratic control. 
APPROPRIATIONS CUT BY BILLIONS 

Despite the obstacles, the Republican Con- 
gi-ess of lUiO reduced the appropriations $1,- 
500,000,000 by making them a billion and a 
half less than the Wilson administration 
asked for in its last year, and $3,000,000,000 
less than w as appropriated in the fiscal year 
preceding. This surely was doing some- 
thing, but before 1 go on further 1 wish to 
call attention to the simple fact that one 
result of the war was to impose upon the 
country as a permanent appropriation a bil- 
lion dollars to pay the interest on the debt 
incurred by tlie United States, and that in- 
terest account was within one hundred mil- 
lions of the total appropriations for the gov- 
ernuient for the year ending June 30, 1916. 

To be perfectly exact, the appropriations 
for that year were $1,114,000,000. The ap- 
propriations for tlie next year, ending Jime 
30, 1917, wlien we had been in the war three 
months, were $1,025,000,000; for the year end- 
ing June 30, 1918, after one year and three 
montlis of war, tlie appropriations were $18,- 
892,000,000, 1 think 1 am not mistaken in say- 
ing that these are figures that are not dull, 
but the next year we surpassed those that 
I have just given, for the appropriations for 
tlie fiscal year ending June 30, 1919, were 
$27,065,000,000. 

Tlien the Republican party came into pow- 
er in -March, 1919, and they repealed war 
appr(;i)riations aggregating more than $8,- 
000,000,000. i'or tlie fiscal year ending June 
30, 1920, the first under a Republican Con- 
gress, the api)ropriations aggregated $6,- 
495,000,000, and remember that the year be- 
fore they had been .$27,000,000,000. For the 
next fiscal year, ending June 30, 1921, they 
were decreased bv the Republican Congress 
to $1.78(1,0(10.00'), and for the fiscal year end- 
ing June :M), 1!)22. .$3,90:).000.000, just short of 
.$!,()(i().0( 10.000. 

Siiici- the present Congress has be(!n in 
thev have reduced appropriations asked for 
bv "tlic (b'partinents of $5,337,000,000 to $1.- 
42M.(J( 1(1,000. This was the work of the pres- 
ent "(io iKtthini,'" <-()ngrcss. 'I'his is i)artly 
owing to tlM" la<'( that during the year end- 
ing June .10, i:'2l m.CM pc()i)l(' were dis- 
inisscd IroMi tlie public service, and since 
th(! artiiistice :V20.27K employes have been 
dropi)ed from the civil pay rolls. 

REVENUE ACT DEFENDED 

I/ct me no\\ call attention hrielly to wliat 
the "do nothing" ('ongr«'ss has done during 
tlie extra sr-ssion. which began on the lltli 
(»f April and ended Nov. 2'!. We passed the 
revenue act of l!t21. This was h very <'om 
plicated and very difllcult meiisure, involv- 
intr a revision of the taxes iiniiosed by tite 
war legislation. It was alis(»hitely neces 
sarv to raise a certain amount of money 



to meet the expenditures of the government 
and, therefore, there had to be taxes con- 
tinued or imposed. The law has been severe- 
ly criticized in certain quarters because 
there was not a larger reduction made in 
tlie income surtaxes. 

I should have been glad, personally, to 
have made tliose surtaxes lower than they 
were finally agreed upon, but we were com- 
pelled to get the money somewhere and it 
seemed to the Republican majority of the 
Congress that the most important relief to 
be given to business and the country was by 
the termination of the excess profits taxes. 
These taxes had greatly declined in amount, 
but still it was expected to raise by them 
some four hundred millions. It was also 
thouglit of the first importance to get rid 
of the transportation taxes on freight, pas- 
sengers and express packages — a direct bur- 
den on all the business of the country. That 
tax brought in $260,000,000. We were also 
anxious to repeal some of the smaller taxes 
on special articles, popularly known as the 
"nuisance taxes." We repealed many of 
tliem. Some it was necessary to leave in 
order to get the necessary money. 

Now. as a general proposition, no tax is 
pojiular and no bill imposing taxes is ever 
liked. This bill, however, admitting tlie ne- 
cessity of taxes, has really brought a large 
measure of relief from taxes to which little 
attention has been paid. The total reduc- 
tion on the best analysis which can be made 
will reach $835,000,000 for the calendar year. 

This is a very large reduction in taxation 
and I believe that, owing to the great sav- 
ings that have been made and to the dimin- 
ution of expenditures, we shall be able to 
make still further tax reductions in the next 
year. Consider this when you hear the par- 
rot cry that Congress has done nothing. 
THE BUDGET 

We passed also the budget act, which had 
been vetoed by President Wilson when sent 
to him by the previous Congress. General 
Dawes, who has been placed at the head of 
the budget coimnission. has done very great 
work, in which he has had the most cordial 
support from the President, and the budget 
system undoubtedly is going to lead to a 
permanent reduction in appropriations. 

We also passed the emergency tariff for 
the benefit of the farmeivs, because our vast 
agricultural interests have suffered more se- 
verely from the rapid decline of prices than 
any other interest in the country. 

We j)assed the veterans' bureau act, one 
ol the first acts which were dealt with. This 
was the so-callcMl "Sweet bill" which estab- 
lished a veterans' buriviu con.solidating all 
the agencies charged with care and resjion- 
sihility in b(>halt' of the ex-service men. The 
aitproprial ions of Congress for this purpose 
will lie between four and live hundred mil- 
lion dollars, and the administration has also 
succeeded eaily in its career in greatly im- 
jiroviiig the service so all inijjortant to our 
disabled veterans. 

We i)assed the immigration restriction 
ait. made necessary by tlie enormous flood 
of immigration fiom Europe induced by war 
conditions and which was threatening to in- 
(•rcase the large numh(>r of those unem- 
|)loved in the coinitrv to a jx'rilous extent. 
We iiass(>d tli(> bill for .<2r),0no,()00 addition to 
the fiirm loan: the naval appropriation and 
the anny aiiprojiriation. which came over 
from the previous Congress and which went 
through Avitii large reductions; the act deal- 



ing in grain futures; tlie act regulating the 
business of the meat packers. 

LOAN ACT FOR FARMERS 

Tlien we passed also for the benelit of our 
agricultural interests the war finance and 
agricultural loan act. This was an extension 
of the finance commission established dur- 
ing the war, which had been a marked suc- 
cess, in order to bring aid to the farmers 
by credits given on good security. We 
passed the federal highway act; the mater- 
nity act, which provided for government aid 
to the states in all efforts for the benefit 
of mothers and infants. Legislation carry- 
ing appropriations was passed for the ship- 
ping board in our endeavor to save what 
could be saved from the vast wreck due to 
the wastefulness and extravagance of our 
predecessors. 

We amended the Edge export act to en- 
courage and help our export business, and 
the cable control act, which regulated all 
cables landed in the United States. We 
have also passed a bill for the funding of the 
foreign debt to the United States. With 
accumulated interest it amounts in round 
numbers to $11,000,000,000. It is now in the 
form of national notes, notes of hand. It 
should be in some permanent form, which 
inakes the legislation necessary. 

The United States has no intention of 
playing the part of a usurer, but this was 
the money of the American people which 
was lent to the allied and associated powers 
in their time of greatest need. The debts 
which the United States owed to those pow- 
ers she has paid in cash, and has questioned 
none of them. They were trifling compared 
to what the allied and associated powers 
owe to us. We are well aware that some, 
perhaps many, of the nations indebted to 
the XJnited States cannot now pay their 
principal or interest, but some arrangement 
must be made to place that great debt upon 
a businesslike basis, and to secure what is 
properly due to the United States and her 
people, for it was the people who lent the 
money by subscribing for their own bonds 
and giving the proceeds to the powers who 
were fighting Germany. 

THE ARMAMENT CONFERENCE 
Now if you will indulge me I should like 
to ask you to come with me into a field 
larger even than that of the domestic prob- 
lems and policies of the United States. I 
wish to bring before you the international 
conference for the limitation of armaments 
and for the Far East 

This conference, as the world knows, was 
called by President Harding. It was a great 
service, in my opinion, to the peace of the 
w^orld, and is an integral part of the prin- 
ciples which have guided the President dur- 
ing his year in office. He has been devoting 
himself and his administration to the ut- 
most in an effort to improve the conditions 
left by the war, in the United States and in 
the world at large. The task is enormous 
and difficult to a degree which only those 
who have been brought face to face with it 
can realize. 

The war left behind it a wrecked world. 
Millions of the strongest and best of the 
youth of the Avestern world perished in bat- 
tle; business was shattered, and the purchas- 
ing power of all the great markets of Eu- 
rope was almost destroyed. Only the slow- 
moving hand of time will cure all the losses 
caused by the frightful convulsion of four 



years, it is our part as a nation to do the 
best we can to make better these terrible 
conditions, and the situation appeals to 
President Harding with peculiar force, for 
he is a man wlio has the right to say, as 
Abou Ben Adhem said to the angel: "Write 
me as one who loves his fellowmen." As 
the long i)rocession of people, with an end- 
less variety of cares and sorrows, joys and 
hopes and desires pass before him day by 
day, the deepest thought in his mind, wheth- 
er in small matters or large, is to try to 
help others wherever he can, and to in- 
crea.se the hapi)iness not only of those whom 
he sees but of his entire country. 

AIMS OF THE PRESDJENT 

The courage to do what is right, the de- 
tennination to do his duty to his country 
at all hazards are there and will not fail, 
but President Harding's dominant impulse 
is to try to make the world, so far as he can 
do it, a better place for men and women to 
live in. This has been behind all his do- 
mestic policies, and this was the moving in- 
fluence in his call for the conference. The 
President does not believe in alliances for 
the United States— alliances which are 
backed by force and accompanied with pen- 
alties. He stands firmly on the great Wash- 
ington tradition that the United States 
should liave no permanent alliances, but he 
also believes that the United States, free 
and unliampered, can thus be of greater 
service than in any other way to humanity 
and to mankind. His desire is to do what 
can and ought to be done by appealing to 
what is best in the nations, to the right 
feeling of men and women, and by getting 
them to agree together, Avith no alliances, 
no provisions for war in the background, to 
do what is right to reduce the burden of 
armaments and promote the cause of peace. 
For these reasons, and moved by these im- 
pulses, he summoned the conference, sent 
his representatives to it, and the results are 
now before the world. 

The American delegation consisted of Mr. 
Hughes, the Secretary of State; Mr. Root, 
Senator Underwood and myself. 

"PARTY POLITICS NEVER HEARD" 

Both parties were represented on the del- 
egation and no word of party or politics was 
ever heard in our deliberations. We were 
there simply as Americans representing the 
United States. We discussed every subject 
from every point of view. We never had a 
difference of any kind. We stood absolutely 
together in our efforts for what we believed 
to be for the highest interests of the United 
States and of the world of men outside our 
gates. We were restricted in our jurisdic- 
tion, of course, by the terms of the Presi- 
dent's invitation. Our throe great objects 
were the limitation of armaments, the ter- 
mination of tlie Anglo-Japaneso alliance and 
to obtain all we could for the benefit of 
China, in which the dominant feature was 
the return of the province of Shantung. 

In all three of these objects we were suc- 
cessful. 1 <lo not underrate in the least the 
earnest good will and cooperation tiiat we 
received from all our colleagues repiesent- 
ing the other nations, bnt the lead in the 
conference belonged to the I'nited States, 
because we issued the invitations, and that 
lead we took and held throughout. Almost 
every proposition, certainly all of any im- 
portance, was brought forward by the Amer- 
ican delegation. 



Land armaments could not be limited, be- 
cause the situation of France was such that 
she felt it was necessary for her safety to 
maintain her present land forces. There- 
fore our exertions were confined to naval ar- 
mament. 

Mr. Hughes opened the armament confer- 
ence Nov. 12 with his masterly presentation 
of the proposition, which the American dele- 
gation had been working over for weeks 
previously, in regard to the reduction of 
naval armament. 

We so reduced the number of capital ships 
that at the end of 10 years Great Britain 
will have 15 ships, the United States 15 and 
Japan lU. The United States now has 33 
capital ships. Great Britain 41 and Japan 21. 
The capital ship tonnage of these powers at 
the present time is: The United tSates, 
728,390 tons; Great Britain, 1,015,825 tons; 
Japan, 494,528 tons. At the end of 10 years 
the United States will have 525,000 tons of 
capital ships. Great Britain 525,000 tons and 
Japan 315.000 tons. 

The United States made a great and gen- 
erous offer. The capital ships which we 
abandon, convert or destroy number 28 and 
they represent an expenditure of $330,000,- 
000. No nation has ever before made such 
an offer as that. Great Britain met it and 
Japan met it. A large proportion of the 
navy of Great Britain had been already 
scrapped since the war, but that did not 
allect the reduction. Tiiis great reduction 
\ in capital ships is the feature of the con- 
■'ference work which has most impressed the 
world. It is the most spectacular part of 
the work and is of very great importance, 
and yet it is not .so important as other pro- 
vii^ions of the naval treaty to which com- 
paratively little notice has been paid. 

We have i)rovi(!ed for a naval holiday, 
which runs to 1947, during which only ships 
for replacement can be built, and most im- 
portant of all we liave limited the tonnage, 
not only of capital sliips, but of auxiliary 
ship.s. and we have limited the calibre of 
the guns for all vessels. It means tlie end 
of naval (■onii)eLition. It will no longer be 
necessaiy foi- any nation to \)v. continually 
increasing \u'v sliii) tonnage and her gun 
calibres in ortler to keep abreast of or pass 
her neighbor. This naval treaty, upouAvhicli 
our navy must be based and continued, 
means a relief, not so much at the moment 
as in the future years, from the great bur- 
den wliidi ha'^ rested upon all maritime na- 
tions because of great naval armaments. It 
will lielp alM) to maintain the ))eace ot the 
world. S(i niueli lor our iirst object. 
NOT AN ALLIANCE 
By wiiat is known as t lie louijiower treaty, 
signed l)y the liiited States. France, Great 
liritain ai\(! Japan, we terminate the Anglo 
Japanoe alliance. 'I'liat alliance was a 
breeder (»r susjiii-ion in North .America, both 
In (Canada and the liiited States. It had 
an unfoitunate effect in Asia. It offered a 
s<»il in ulilcli the seeds of war might easily 
grow. It is gone. And that treaty which 
reliites only to tlie insular possessions arid 
dominions of the f(»ur powers in the I'acill<' 
merely provides that we shall resi)ect each 
otlieis rights in such possessions and do 
ndnion.s and that it controversies arise wc 
sliall consult before taking any further 
measuics. 

There is no alliance in it; no military or 
iiavul force Is hidden anywhere In those 
simple paragraphs. The only obligatbm we 



assume is that of consultation and when the 
consultation has been held each nation that 
was in it, eacli party to the treaty, is as free 
to do what she thinks right as she was when 
she entered the doors. The treaty rests on 
the good intentions, the better feeling of 
nations and on the world-wide desire that 
our children may be spared from the horrors 
which were poured out upon us in the war 
witli Germany. That is tlie second result of 
ilie conference. Now as to the third. 

The United States refused absolutely to 
accept the proposition in regard to Shan- 
tung in the treaty of Versailles and believed 
then, and believes now, that that province 
sliould be controlled by China, of which it 
was always been a part. But of the other 
eight powers at the table in Washington 
six had ratiiied tlie treaty of Versailles and 
had accepted tliat clause relating to Shan- 
lung. Therefore, tlie only way to get that 
wrong undone was to bring about negotia- 
tions between Japan and China directly. 

This was effected by the good offices of 
the United States, represented by Mr. 
Hughes, and of Great Britain, represented 
by Mr. Balfour. The result has been that 
Shantung goes back to Cliina practically 
unbuitlened. The only hold retained by 
Japan is a irallic manager on tlie railroad, 
appointed liy and under a Chinese director. 
China is to buy the railroad with her own 
treasury notes. The notes are to run for 15 
years and in five years they can be re- 
deemed., in the meantime, within six 
montiis, Japanese troops will all be with- 
drawn from Sliantung and China will have 
her oldest and most sacred province once 
more within her own hands. England an- 
nounced on the conclusion of this treaty 
that slie would return to China the port of 
Wei Hal Wei, which was held under a lease, 
and that will clear the province entirely 
from any foreign hold. 

In addition to that we signed a treaty ne 
gotiated by the nine powers, agreeing to re- 
spect the administrative, territorial and po- 
litical integrity of China. There are clauses 
in it providing also for neutrality and for 
the open door, all most lieiielicial to the 
Chinese empire, as are a number of other 
declarations agreed to i)y the conference, in 
regard to foreign postollices, foreign troops, 
and matters of that character, which no\\ 
liamper and shackle China in her effort to 
establish herself again, regain i)eace and 
secure her independence. 

I think this is a great work. It will hel|> 
to relieve the burden of taxation and, in 
my opinion, to jiromote the i)eace of the 
world. And we all owe this to the wisdom 
of President llai-ding in summoning that 
conference. When they say that the Kepuli 
lican party has done nothing, after you hav«- 
reviewed what Congress has accomidished, 
call attention to this conference where more 
has l)een done in 12 weeks for the world's 
lieac(> than has been done anywhere else in 
twice a>^ many years. 

These are (jiiestions wiiicii rise above tlie 
reuion of pcditics. but the fact remains that 
it was undei- a I\ei)ul)lican President that 
steps have been taken under which a thor 
otighly .\meri«'an policy has b(>en carried out 
in the conference at ^VasIlington, l)y a dele- 
gation repres(>nting both political parties, 
with a success \>iiicli is re<'ognized by the 
entire world. 

Such In mere outline is the work of the 
first I^'j)ublican year. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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